


Indecision

by djsoliloquy



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-21
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 13:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djsoliloquy/pseuds/djsoliloquy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young corporal by the name of Erwin Smith finds himself in discussion with a Cpt. Dot Pixis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Indecision

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt on the SnK kinkmeme desiring Erwin in any capacity! Turned into theorizing about what a young!Erwin might have been like.

Erwin remembers the first time he ever questioned an officer.

He can't remember the assignment specifics, only that he was told an eccentric from the Garrison had requested a temporary Survey Corps liaison, and none of Erwin’s superiors deemed it important enough to go themselves. It had probably been as simple as go, answer the fool’s questions, don’t embarrass us, get out.

Erwin doesn't even remember what he said exactly, only that it occurred to him too late that he was still addressing an officer, even if it wasn’t one of his own. _Is this the right decision? Is it worth that cost? Can you do it?_

He stood in front of the wide desk and said it—words that amounted to nothing more than token resistance because he could see the sense in the plan but said it anyway, not quite blurting it out and wishing he’d been quicker, that he could take it back as the room went quiet.

And Captain Dot Pixis looked up from the maps and smirked. Like he’d been _waiting_ for Erwin to do it. And Erwin, long past his first solo Titan kill but still fresh in other ways, came to his senses and hurried to take it back.

Pixis had just laughed and gestured for him to sit down.

That was how Erwin found himself across the desk from Captain Pixis, sharing a cup of something strange and herbal from the man’s personal flask. The abrupt equality of it after years of strict military protocol was faintly terrifying.

From the time Erwin walked in, he suspected Pixis was as pleased to evade the Survey Corps officers as the officers had been to not show up, and the theory held. Captain Pixis relaxed, setting his boots on the desk and cradling his cup on his stomach.

“Ever seen a village under quarantine, Corporal Smith?” said Pixis, taking a sip and gazing out the window.

As a matter of fact, Erwin had. Rather explicitly.

When he gripped his drink and didn’t answer, Pixis continued. “I suppose that’s outside the Corps' realm of expertise,” he said, not mockingly but a simple reflection on the matter. “On top of Wall security we’ve had six bad outbreaks in the past several months, and I can tell you it's not pretty. A lot of scared people dying, trapped, and with no way out until we get a doctor to the area, if one comes at all. At some point in all this,” he said, looking from the window to Erwin’s face, “we get to decide: are we going to lose all of them, or only some of them?”

Erwin felt all the air go out of him, seeing possible trails of where the conversation could go from there and none of them were pleasant. This was not why he had been sent, and there was suddenly something dark and significant in the room with them.

“Sir?” said Erwin.

“That will be all humanity in the long run,” said Pixis conversationally and he drank from the flask rather than pouring another measure. “There is no doubt in my mind. If not Titans, something else. You’ll have been outside by now, corporal. What do you think?”

Erwin held himself still and tried to remain collected in front of another branch’s captain.

No one who knew Erwin Smith—Erwin, who had no deep thirst for the killing hunt, who thought too much about losses—none of them understood why he had joined the Survey Corps. He didn’t try to explain it, either, but the truth was very close to him in this room and the reason why he hadn’t been able to stop himself from asking Pixis questions they both knew the answers to.

A lot of scared people dying. Trapped.

A shiver of certainty ran up Erwin’s spine. He was aware of his chest moving in and out as he breathed.

“I don’t know,” he said, carefully controlled, and that was the first time he ever deliberately lied to an officer.

Pixis sighed.

“We say it's our job to protect people in some way or another, but that's not the whole truth is it, corporal?” he said, and the hairs on Erwin’s neck stood on end. “We don't just protect their lives. We make their lives livable by protecting the biggest lie of all, which is that they are safe. We do it so that when the worst happens, they can say they didn't know. So that when the tough calls have to be made, they can say it wasn't their fault.”

He didn’t sound angry or bitter. He sounded reconciled.

Erwin’s jaw was clenched, his back wracked by tension. What he suspected Pixis wanted him to admit was appearing to him in pieces, like the memory of a door he told himself he hadn’t already stepped through.

“So no,” Pixis continued, taking his boots off the desk, “to answer your question I guess this might not be necessary. I suppose none of us has to make those big decisions. Some days I'm not even sure I can,” he said, and Erwin didn’t believe that for a second.

Pixis held a stack of reports, offering them up.

“So will you do it?” he asked.

Erwin’s first instinct was to flinch away from the offer, except it was more an instinct to tell himself that he should flinch from it. And then, after a moment, _I don’t know._

But he did know. At times he could tell some of his squad mates and superiors didn't, but he understood very well what Pixis was saying. It was vast and terrible but _real_ and it had always been there, and he knew because he had already come to terms with it.

Being long past his first assignment outside Wall Maria, Erwin found the feeling familiar.

He’d joined the Survey Corps at a time when nobody outside that branch had experienced a Titan threat in their lifetimes, and he did it not for glory but because the very best case scenario they faced—the absolute best outcome they could hope for if they did nothing—was to stay locked inside until every last person was dead. He did it because there were things worth forfeiting innocence and ignorance for.

Trapped and dying wasn’t humanity in the long run. That was humanity _right now_. Deciding to do nothing would actually be the biggest decision of all. And Erwin didn’t have to pretend he didn't understand.

It was… almost a relief, so see that. Like being given a blessing.

He came back to himself with his hand beginning to reach across the table.

With a start, he lowered it back to his side. It had been only a symbolic offer and, he supposed, a symbolic response. The words _I don’t know_ remained on his lips, but he didn’t need them.

“Yes,” he said, looking Pixis in the face.

Pixis nodded at the answer, as though he had been waiting for it.

“Glad to hear it,” he said with another sigh, and let the papers flop to the table. “Try not to get eaten in the meantime. Now, tell me what you know of Titan activity along the section outside Maria from _here_ to _here_...”


End file.
